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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 4/17/2013

Several new features to improve warning system highlighted for Tornado and Severe Weather Awareness Week

Dane County Executive Joe Parisi was joined by Dane County Emergency Management Director Charles Tubbs for a Tornado and Severe Weather Awareness Week press conference to discuss the county-wide upgrade to the County’s emergency warning system. Several new technologies are being added to increase protection of area residents

“We are making this major investment to upgrade our emergency warning system because public safety is the most important role we have in county government. These updates eliminate the need to warn Waunakee for a storm that is hitting Belleville. We can now target the warning information to those in harm’s way ,” said Parisi.

Upgrades to the Dane County Emergency Warning System incorporate multiple components that increase the ability to warn citizens by using many different mediums to broadcast warning information. New to the system is the provision of warning information directly to individuals through email, social media, and a downloadable desktop warning application.

If citizens have shed their traditional telephone line for a cell phone or cable-based phone line (e.g. VOIP through Charter, Vonage, etc.), they should register these phone numbers with the Emergency Warning System. Current technology does not allow Dane County to add these telephone numbers to the emergency telephone notification list without citizens registering these numbers.

“With global climate change severe weather events are increasingly occurring in Dane County,” said Supervisor Paul Rusk, Chair of the Public Protection and Judiciary Committee. “This warning system upgrade project will help assist the general public in knowing when to take cover as the storm based warning process specifically targets warning messages to impacted areas.”